The manufacturing and packaging of chewing gum in block form, such as bubble gum, usually is a semi-automated operation wherein loaves of finished gum are passed through an extruder and formed into long ropes of gum. The ropes are then fed to a cut and wrap machine where the ropes are formed into rectangular cross section and cut into individual blocks of gum after which each of the individual blocks is wrapped. The wrapped blocks are manually placed in trays and transferred to a manual magazine feed overwrapping machine where a set number of individually wrapped blocks are grouped and overwrapped to provide a finished wrapped package of gum. Unfortunately, it has been found that this procedure, especially the packaging phase, requires excessive direct labor and space and therefore is economically unsatisfactory for an overall gum making and packaging operation.